Residency 2 Academics

Managerial Marketing: SUS6060

Conducting Marketing Research and Forecasting Demand;Connecting with Customers,; Building Strong Brands

And our goals for this residency are . . .

“Discovering a consumer insight and understanding its marketing implications

can often lead to a successful product launch or spur the growth of a brand.”

(Kotler & Keller, 89)

Define the problem, decision alternatives, and research

objectives.

e.g. How important is it to be tied to sustainability

And how long can the company sustain that lead?

Develop the research plan.

Data sources: Primary and secondary data.

Research approaches: Observational, ethnographic, focus group survey, behavioral data (e.g. grocery store traces), experimental research (cause-and-

effect relationships)

Collect the information.Pros and cons of online research:

Advantages: Inexpensive, fast, honest, versatile.

Disadvantages: Small and skewed samples, Web inconsistencies and problems.

4. Analyze the information. (testing theories, assumptions, strength of conclusions)

5. Present the findings.(proactive, consulting role with understandable recommendations)

6. Make the decision.(See Marketing News for software and Marketing Decision Support system and CALLPLAN model for sales calls.)

1. Research customer behavior and why customers behave that way?

2. Report such results to the board in a format integrated with financial marketing metrics?

3. Compare results with previous forecasts?

4. Compare with key competitor levels?

5. Adjust short-term performance according to market changes?

It’s your job to present info your client can use in the future!

Potential: Consumer interest, which may not be supported by income and access to product)

Available: Consumers with interest, income, access, separate from qualified available market.

Target: Part of qualified available market to pursue

Penetrated: Set of consumers who are buying product

•Perceived

value:

• Difference

between

benefits and

costs of

offering (and

alternative)

•Determinants

of total

customer cost:

• Monetary cost;

• Time cost;

• Energy cost;

• Psychological

cost

•Determinants

of total

customer

benefit:

• Product benefit;

• Services

benefit;

• Personnel

benefit;

• Image benefit.

Today, the customer is the company’s only true “profit center”

Managers at every level must be personally involved in knowing, meeting, and serving customers.

(Kotler & Keller, 120-121)

Customer value analysis (and who are customer evangelists?)

Developing a value proposition, value delivery system

Customer profitability/analysis

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Overcome negativity:

24/7 hotline,

quick customer contact,

accept responsibility,

be empathetic,

resolve complaint,

indicate caring about customer.

Sunday’s Southwest Airline fiasco after director Kevin Hill was taken off flight and tweeted:

"Dear @SouthwestAir, I'm on another one of your planes, safely seated & buckled-in again, waiting to be dragged off in front of the normies,"

"Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off!“

Huge support for Hill caused SW to issue apology.

Cultural factors (e.g. David’s Bridal main home page versus their Latino market site);

Social factors , including family and reference groups (e.g. Chrysler’s 2005 “Inspired Drives” tour and 2010 Haiti relief efforts);

Personal factors (age, occupation, personality, lifestyle, etc.

The aim of marketing: Meet and satisfy target customer’s needs and wants

better than competitors (Kotler & Keller, 149).

“Green Police” Super Bowl ad:

Cheap trick or smart move by Audi?

Key processes: Freud, Maslow, Herzberg

Example: Chrysler’s PT Cruiser “broke the code” of cookie-cutter sedans

1. Problem recognition (e.g. milk deprivation);

2. Information search (personal, commercial, public, experiential);

3. Evaluation of alternatives (several processes based on conscious and rational needs and benefits);

4. Purchase decision;

5. Postpuchase behavior.

“…buying process starts long before the actual purchase and has consequences long afterward.”

(Kotler & Keller, 167)

Business markets:“Organizations that acquire goods and services used in

the production of other products or services that are sold, rented, or supplied to others.” For instance:

agriculture, manufacturing, construction, transportation, banking, etc. (Kotler & Keller, 182).

Business has fewer, larger buyers;

Close supplier-customer relationships;

Professional purchasing;

Multiple buying influences, sales calls, etc.

Derived, inelastic, fluctuating demands;

Geographically concentrated buyers;

Direct purchasing.

The balance is shifting from PUSH to TRUST. (Edelman Trust Barometer, #11 from 2009, about How to Build Trust in Corporations)

Customers were once sold company solutions – now help design solutions through communities (Kotler & Keller, p. 200)

New measures of risks and opportunism with niche audiences, e.g. Star Wars fanatics.

“Companies cannot connect with all customers in large, broad, or diverse

markets. But they can divide such markets into groups of consumers or

segments with distinct needs or wants.” (Kotler & Keller, 207).

Mass: large potential market ad lower costs (e.g. Henry Ford and Coca Cola with one product)

Segment: Groups sharing similar needs and wants

-- Flexible: Naked (basic) product plus options

-- Preference segments

Niche: (e.g. guerrilla against gorilla marketing MySpace losing members to niche offerings such as 1up.com and Dogster)

Local (community) and individual (segments of one)

Endlessly long tail of niche markets in demand curve;

Why the future of business is selling less of more.

Between 2000 and 2005, the Netflix selection grew from 4,500 DVDs to 18,000, and the effect on the demand of this increase in variety is shown above. (Anderson’s blog, retrieved 2/14/10)

Geographic: (Bed Bath & Beyond managers pick 70% of merchandise = fierce local focus);

Demographic: Associated with needs and wants, are easy to measure;

Psychographic: (see right);

Behavioral: Knowledge, attitude, use or response to product.

Which Values and Lifestyles (VALS) type are you? Take the survey at

Strategic Business Insights.

“At the heart of a successful brand is a great product or service, backed by

careful planning, a great deal of long-term commitment, and creatively

designed and executed marketing. A strong brand commands intense

consumer loyalty.” (Kotler & Keller, 235).

1. Identifying and establishing brand positioning;

2. Planning and implementing brand marketing;

3. Measuring and interpreting brand performance;

4. Growing and sustaining brand value.

Example: ESPN’s legend that their strategy came from one male focus group respondent --

“If ESPN was a woman, I’d marry her!”

BRAND: “A name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.”

BRAND EQUITY: Added value endowed on products and services.

(AMA; Kotler & Keller, 236-238.)

BRANDING convinces consumers of meaningful differences.

Physical goods: Old Spice

Services: Transamerica Insurance

Stores: Tiffany’s

Persons: Gov. Schwarzenegger

Places: San Francisco

Organizations: Tea Party Patriots

Ideas: Pastafarians

Brand asset valuator shows comparative measures:

Differentiation (difference from others);

Energy (sense of momentum);

Relevance (breadth of appeal);

Esteem (how brand is regarded/respected);

Knowledge (familiarity and intimacy with consumers).

How many factors play into this Nokia strategy?

Three main choices for product introduction:

1. Develop new brand elements for the new product;

2. Apply some existing brand elements;

3. Use combination of new and existing brand elements.

Subbrand: Hershey Kisses Candy to Hershey

Line extension: Dannon’s yogurts

Category extension: Parent brand enters different category, e.g. Honda’s “six Hondas in a two-car garage”

Smart brands are more concerned with relevance and resonance…NOT awareness.

You have to know it before you can grow it. (who are you, where have you been, where are you going?)

Spandex rule: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Great brands = enduring customer relationships. (Remember trust/emotion)

EVERYTHING matters! Even your restroom.

All brands need good parents, not troubled homes.

Big is no excuse for bad. (People and planet before PR and profit)

Relevance, simplicity, humanity. staple of future branding success.

(Kotler & Keller, 263)

“No company can win if its products and services resemble every other

product and offering.” (Kotler & Keller, 267).

All marketing strategy built on STP:

Segmentation;

Targeting;

Positioning.

Constant monitoring:

Economic conditions;

Competitors assault;

Changes in buyer interests and needs;

Positioning in minds of target market.

Example: “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno!”

And: Ads retooled for recession

Points-of-Difference: Associated with brand and can’t be found with competitor. E.g. Lexus quality, Apple design, Nike performance.

Points-of-Parity: Associations shared with brands. E.g. competitive positioning of Miller Lite beer through celebrities: “Tastes Great!” or “Less Filling!”

POPs vs. PODs:

Visa (available) vs. American Express (prestigious)

Often included in marketing plans:

“To (target group and need, our (brand) is (the concept) that (what the point-of-difference is or does).

Example:

“To busy professionals who need to stay organized, Palm Pilot is an electronic organizer that allows you to back up your PC more easily and reliably than competitive products.”

How do people become aware of their need for your product?

How do consumers find your offering? Make their final selection? Order and purchase the selection?

What happens when it is delivered? Installed?

How is it paid for? What about returns/exchanges and repairs?

How is it stored or moved around?

What is the consumer really using it for?

What do consumers need help with when they use it?

What happens when your product is disposed of/no longer used?

Intro Growth Maturity Decline

Sales Low Rapidly rising

Peak sales Declining sales

Costs High unit costs

Lowering unit costs

Costs rise Costs rise

Profits Negative Rising Highest Declining

Customers Innovators Early adopters; early majority

Late majority; laggards

Laggards

Competitors None Growing Most Decline

Adapted from Kotler & Keller, 278-279)

1. A new product/service dimension expands the boundaries of an existing category;

2. A new product/set of products carves out a fresh niche in an existing category;

3. A new competitor devises a way to bundle existing categories into a super category;

4. A new competitor repositions existing products or services to create an original category;

5. Customer needs propel a new category or subcategory;

6. A new technology leads the development of a category/subcategory;

7. A company exploits changing technologies to invent a new category.

Emergence: 1) Design new product as single-niche strategy; 2) Launch two or more products simultaneously (multiple-niche strategy); Design new product for mid-market (mass-market strategy).

Growth: If product sells well, new firms will enter market.

Maturity: Mature markets swing between fragmentation from competition and consolidation from innovation.

Decline: Demand decreases, causing need to reconsider how to conduct business.

“Building strong brands requires a keen understanding

of competitors, and competition grown more

intense every year.” (Kotler & Keller, 293).

Four threats posed by competitors, potential entrants, substitutes, buyers, and suppliers:

1. Intense segment rivalry (e.g. cellular phone market);

2. New entrants: With low entry barriers and high exit barriers, we see airline overcapacity;

3. Substitute products: (e.g. air travel and Amtrak);

4. Supplier’s growing bargaining power: Organized suppliers, such as OPEC, reduces options for oil companies.

Industry approach:

Number of sellers;

Degree of product differentiation;

Presence/absence of entry, mobility, exit barriers;

Cost structure;

Degree of vertical integration;

Degree of globalization.

Market approach:

Competitors = companies satisfying same customer

need.

Map buyer’s steps in obtaining and using product

to profile direct/indirect competitors

Goal: Tap into new markets that minimizes competition

from others.

See pgs. 296-301 for analyzing competitors, including benchmarking.

Competitor-centered example:

Observed situation: Competitor W is going to crush us in Miami. Reaction: We will withdraw from the Miami market because we cannot afford to fight this battle.

Customer-centered example:

Observed situation: A growing number of customers express interest in a 24-hour hotline, which no one in the industry offers. Reaction: We will install a 24-hour hotline if it looks promising.

(Kotler & Keller, 314)

Competitive strategies for market leaders: pgs. 301-315

Is your client a market leader, challenger, follower, or nicher?

Expanding the total market: New customers, more usage

Defending market share: Position, flank, preemptive, counteroffensive, mobile, and contraction defense

Expanding market share: pg. 308 for factors before increasing share;

Other competitive strategies: Market-challenger; General Attack Encirclement attack; Bypass attack; guerrilla warfare;

See pg. 311 about how small brands can better compete.